Category romances have been a part of my life for more years than I am prepared to admit. As a young girl of 13/14, I was attracted to these books with their handsome heroes and doe-eyed heroines on the cover. Harlequin Mills and Boon novels have seen me through adolescence, school, college, marriage, babies, several house moves and many other significant milestones. But I must confess that I came to the Medical Romance line by accident.

Sure, I had read scores of Betty Neels books with their brooding Dutch heroes and nostalgic view of the world, but I had never really paid much attention to these books; preferring the brooding Alpha heroes, the sensuality and exotic locations of the Presents line, the emotion and the feel-good factor of the Romance line or the sweeping stories of the Historical line. But twenty years ago, I remember being in the library and, having read all of the books on the Mills and Boon shelves from the lines mentioned above and finding nothing to strike my fancy on the general fiction shelves, I decided on a whim to pick up a copy of Partners in Love by the great, late and much missed Maggie Kingsley. I went home and started reading the book and I was hooked.

Partners in Love had all the emotion, drama and tension I looked for in the Romance line, the gorgeous heroes I loved from the Presents line and the enthralling and compulsively readable romantic read that I look for whenever I pick up a Harlequin Mills and Boon novel. I went on to read every single book of Maggie’s I could find and discovered other favourite writers like Jennifer Taylor, Caroline Anderson, Marion Lennox, Meredith Webber, Kate Hardy, Amy Andrews and many, many others.

Whether the books are set in a GP practice in rural England or Australia (my personal favourites), in a busy city hospital or in other far flung countries in the world, Medical Romance readers are treated to a wonderful story with gorgeous heroes, wonderful heroines, action-paced medical drama, heart-pounding emotion and a love story that will make them laugh and cry. Medical Romances, far from being the conservative and old-fashioned stories many perceive them to be, have, over the years, dealt with topical issues such as divorce, abortion, domestic abuse, surrogacy, adoption and many others.

So, if you’ve been thinking about picking up a Medical Romance or haven’t picked one up in a long time, I urge you to stop thinking about it and stock up on the latest releases – you will certainly not be disappointed!

I read books all sorts of ways…hardback, paperback, ebook and audio. Some people argue with me that listening to an audio book isn’t reading but I say pish to that. I tell you, I’d get no housework done if I didn’t have audio books to see me through the drudgery of it. Also, what’s not to love about being read a story.

You may or may not have read the last four books I’ve read but if you have please join in the discussion and if you haven’t, please tell me the last four books YOU have read.

The first two books I read are by Australian authors. Three Wishes was Liane Moriarty’s debut novel, written I think about six years ago. It’s about triplets in their 30s and it has the signature Moriarty style. I can see the roots that her writing has grown from. Although not my favourite of her all her books…What Alice Forgot currently holds that title for me… I did enjoy this one.

The Dry is a debut novel by Australian journalist, Jane Harper. It’s set in my home state in a small country town during a vicious drought. The heat and dust rise off the page. I am not a ‘who dunnit’ fan and this book is not usually my type of read but I enjoyed it. Easy to read with well drawn characters and plenty of secrets and lies. I gave it to my dad for his post-operative recovery and he read it in two days. If you like crime fiction, check this one out.

The next two books I listened to on audio books and were random picks for me from the Borrow Box app based on two separate criteria. The Donor was borrowed because it was instantly available and it sounded interesting. Vinegar Girl was a new release.

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler is a modern re-telling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. I have been told for years, ‘you must read Anne Tyler’ but I am not sure this book was the one I should have started with. Although entertaining, it strayed a lot from The Taming of the Shrew and the caustic wit and repartee from that play were missing. Perhaps it is a tale that would suffer from a modern telling, which is why Tyler had the proposed husband “release” Kate from her father and why Kate ran rings around the two men who were written as buffoons.

The Donor was a book I borrowed for the premise. Twin daughters both in kidney failure
and requiring a transplant. One father and a moral dilemma. Also no likeable characters in the book at all. I listened with increasing incredulity to the antics of the cast and I should have put it down but I kept listening, because I was waiting for … I don’t know what I was waiting for except to tell you it didn’t come. My medical knowledge was a disadvantage in this book as I wasn’t able to suspend disbelief. I kept saying, ‘that wouldn’t happen.’

Right now I am reading The Lovely Bones, which I never got around to reading when it was a big hit back in the day.

I’ve just done the final proofs on Forbidden to the Playboy Surgeon, which is book 2 in the Paddington Children’s Hospital series out next year 🙂 Today I start the final proofs on my women’s fiction/family saga, Daughter of Mine, out March 2017.

Right now in Australia, there is reprinting of Career Girl in The Country, my female surgeon fighting sexism in the outback. I love this cover. Of course, if you don’t live in Australia, the book is available everywhere as an eBook

Where doctors to the stars work miracles by day—and explore their hearts’ desires by night…

Seduced by the Heart Surgeon by Carol Marinelli

Falling for the Single Dad by Emily Forbes

Tempted by Hollywood’s Top Doc by Louisa George

Perfect Rivals by Amy Ruttan

The Prince and the Midwife by Robin Gianna

My book is #6 – His Pregnant Sleeping Beauty

WATCH FOR TWO MORE TITLES NEXT MONTH FROM Amalie Berlin and Tina Beckett!

As doctors to the stars, these world-class medics are hand-picked by renowned plastic surgeon, Dr James Rothsberg, Head of the ‘Hills’. His clients expect the very best, and James delivers that and more – his team are global specialists in their field, unrivalled in their expertise and patient care.

Yet behind closed doors, when the pressure is on, sizzling passions run high – and for these dazzling docs, their biggest challenges are yet to come!

Passion, glamour, desire and drama …

So where does the amnesia come in? Thankfully it doesn’t. But when I read the bible for the entire project and the story assigned to me, my first thought was – she’ll wake up with amnesia, oh no! I’ve never written an amnesia story, and to be honest, it is the trope (hook) I like least for books. All I can say is, I thanked my lucky stars when my character woke up asking “Is my baby okay?” Whew!

Here is a sampling of the International covers. #1 is UK, #2 is Australia, #3 is US, and #4 is UK e-book version.

I hope you’ll give all eight of the books a read. We had a great time working as a group to iron out little things, and to make sure we got our parts of the overall continuity arc right leading up to James and Mila’s story in book eight.

If you read any of the books, why not write a short review and make an author very happy.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO HOLLYWOOD? SHARE A LITTLE OF YOUR TRIP IN COMMENTS. OR IF YOU’VE NEVER BEEN BUT WOULD LIKE TO, TELL US WHY. OR IF YOU’VE READ ANY OF THE BOOKS, TELL US WHICH ONES! OR, HAVE YOU EVER HAD AMNESIA? (lol – in other words comment…on anything. Thanks)

I have finally done it. After a lot of thought and a great deal of soul searching I have put my home of forty years on the market and am hoping to move house some time this year. It’s been a big decision as I have been very happy living here. It’s where my husband and I raised our family so this house holds a lot of wonderful memories for me. However, now that I am living here on my own, it’s just too big. The dog and I don’t need all these bedrooms or this massive garden so I shall be downsizing and moving into a lovely, bright and modern apartment. It’s going to be a great place to live and I am looking forward to it but it’s still a daunting prospect. I mean, how do you whittle down a whole house full of furniture etc to fit into a two bedroom apartment.

I keep doing tours of the house, wondering if I should take this with me or that. I know that my lovely Spanish style dining suite won’t fit but if I can’t take it then what will I do with all my glass and china? Should I take the antique Willow pattern dinner and tea service I have been collecting for so many years, or forfeit it so I can take the far-more-practical, dish-washer safe one? Decisions, decisions! And this is before any prospective buyers walk through my front door!

OK, I know I shall get there in the end, but for someone like me – a real stick-in-the-mud – it is definitely taxing to have to pick and choose, and then work out what to do with the leftover items. I must keep focusing on where I hope to be living very soon, in that bright and airy apartment with its views over the canal and the countryside beyond, and not start panicking. However, it any of you have any tips to make the move less stressful then do share them with me. I mean, I haven’t even thought what I’m going to do with all my books!
Jennifer

If you’ve read one or a hundred romances, you’ve probably already been introduced to a particular character type presented by Tami Cowden and cohorts named The Spunky Kid in their Sixteen Master Archetypes book Heroes & Heroines. This spirited underdog not only has to sort out her messy life, but win the guy along the way.

These characters are the unsinkable Molly Browns of the world where “I ain’t down yet” is their mantra, and they are my favorite kind of character.

Who does them best?

My absolute favorite author of these types of characters is Susan Elizabeth Phillips. She manages to strip her plucky heroines down to the bare bones in the beginning of her stories, force them to lose everything, and leave them dangling over a cliff without a foothold. Yet she still manages to bring them back to life…one step at a time, until they conquer all, including the hero, before the end of the book.

Isabel Favor watches her self-help empire come crashing down around her in the opening pages of Breathing Room.

Blue Bailey begins her journey wearing a beaver suit in Natural Born Charmer.

Meg Koranda is down to her last few bucks and, as Maid of Honor, manages to ruin a perfectly planned wedding before the end of chapter one in Call Me Irresistible.

Hmm, this makes me think of a certain young woman dressed for her wedding, standing in a strange American town in Wisconsin holding her decomposing wedding cake. Fiona Lowe wrote a splendid plucky heroine in BOOMERANG BRIDE. 🙂 Which just happens to now be available in mass market paperback at Harlequin website.

Why do we love these spunky heroines?

Because we can relate to them.

From where they’re standing, there is only one way to go – UP! These plucky, pert, minxes pick themselves up, dust themselves off, head into battle, and conquer both their lives and the most unlikely heroes. As readers, we believe every step of their paths. We cheer as they rebuild their lives and themselves into the women they were meant to be.

When these pert and saucy underdogs conquer obstacle after obstacle, we believe we can do the same in our own lives. If they can come back from “there” (whatever major fix or disappointment they must overcome) so can we!

I like to think Polly Seymour, the character I wrote for this year’s NYC Angels continuity, in Making the Surgeon Smile, is also a good example of the spunky kid.

Who is a favorite spunky heroine in a book you’ve recently read? What did you like about her?

If anyone is interested, I’d like to give away a copy of The Medic’s Homecoming, to one commenter. This book is my July 2013 Special Edition, and I like to think Jocelyn Howard is one such plucky chick.

Like this:

I went to the doctor for a sinus infection a couple of weeks ago and he told me to go home and take Nyquil. Several days later when the infection was worse, I went to another doctor who told me to take something else, and also prescribed an antibiotic for a viral process (antibiotics don’t work for viruses). But as the infection kept progressing, I finally went to an emergency room where the doctor gave me yet another course of meds, completely different from anything previously prescribed. Luckily, they’re working.

So what’s the deal? One illness, with so many choices of treatment. All I wanted to do was get better. So far it hasn’t happened, which is why I’m a day late with this blog. Yesterday was my day to post to the blog, but I literally slept through most of it. Today, I’m a little more alert, marginally on the mend, and coherent enough to think about all the different ways the various doctors treated me. Then it occurred to me that what happened to me isn’t so different from the way we choose our books to read. There are a lot of choices out there, more now than ever, and some work for us, while others do not. I’m a diehard romance fan, and I love the genre, but I’ll admit, quite frankly, there are some romance novels that I don’t want to read, or can’t read, or hate to read. They’re all meant to do the same thing for me, as the reader, the way all those various doctors’ prescriptions were meant to do the same thing. Only, two of the three prescriptions didn’t work and I’m going to have to read all the way to the end of this last one to see if it will.

Anyway, I decided to catch up on some reading during my down time, and went straight to one of the books I’ve had for a while in my to-be-read pile. Written by one of my favorite authors, I was anxious to have time to get through it uninterrupted, but by the time I was a chapter into it I was disappointed. It was like my Nyquil prescription…well-intended, but just wrong for what I wanted or needed. Like the Nyquil, it got deleted.

The second book was a little better. Another fav author, another book I really wanted to read. But man, it just didn’t work for me. In fact, I couldn’t tell you how many times I dozed off trying to get through it. In the end, rather than reading it I scanned it just because I wanted to make sure I had the ending figured out. (I did.) It was like chasing a viral with antibiotics – you know they’re not going to work but you take them anyway, mostly because the doctor said to.

With the third book I read, I hit the jackpot. It kept me awake, satisfied me from beginning to end, and did everything a good book is supposed to do, including taking my mind off my illness. So was that art imitating medicine? Or was that just the way it goes? Some books (and medicines) work, some do not.

The more I write, the less time I have to read. In turn, the less time I have to read means the more inclined I am to put aside a book that doesn’t grab me from the start. I didn’t use to do that. If I started it, I finished it. No exceptions. But these days, I’m making exceptions because just like I don’t have the time to be sick, I also don’t have the time to read a book that doesn’t strike my fancy. And you know what? I’m OK with that. It took me a while to get to this point, but nowadays I find it just as easy to delete a book from my reader as I do reading it all the way through.

Now, is there a point to this? Not really. In my stupor, as I get ready to put it down for my fifth nap today, I was just thinking about how my life, in so many ways, is just like the way I read. Could be I’ve designed it that way because reading is my favorite thing to do. Or could be simply the way it turned out. Whatever the case, I’m reading yet another good book in between naps and not feeling so bad for those intervals when the books I’m reading take me to a place where I’m not sick. Makes me wonder if doctors should prescribe a good read along with the pills. Here’s a prescription for and antibiotic and an Agatha Christie. Surely, they’d work well together, wouldn’t they?

Like this:

First of all, I’d like to wish everyone all the very best for 2013. May it bring health, happiness and success!
I have been ill over the holiday season- nothing serious- just a virus that laid me low for a few days. My eldest daughter had gone back to uni, my husband and my younger daughter had gone skiing so that left me plenty of time to write and catch up on my reading.
I love reading and my friends and family know that so I received loads of books for Christmas plus some vouchers to buy more to read on my ipad. (I still prefer to read a ‘real’ book but I also like to have a selection on my ipad for when I travel)

As you can see I Have been reading some books about Afghanistan- that was a few months ago when I was writing my medical romance set in Afghanistan- but I thought a would include a couple I read in case anyone is interested. And while I was on holiday, just before Christmas, I read Sister Pact (not included in the pic as it’s on my ipad ) by our very own Amy Andrews (writing as Ali Ahearn with her sister Ros Baxter) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. For those of you who haven’t read it yet, you’re in for a treat. It’s funny and sad … and just a great read.

Right now, and also not in the pic, I’m reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. If you like a thriller with a difference- try this. I can’t put it down. When that’s finished, I’m going to have to chose between The Woman who went to Bed for a Year – such a great title and Sue Townsend is so funny- and The Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding. I love historical novels but it will depend what kind of mood I’m in when I finish Gone Girl.

I read all sorts of stuff. Romance of course, historical fiction (I love Philippa Gregory and Katharine McMahon amongst others)- as well as crime ( I have the new Peter May whose crime novels are set in Lewis which is an island off the west coast of Scotland close to the one where my parents were raised) as well as thrillers- hence the inclusion of Simon Kernick. I don’t always read genre fiction- hence the inclusion of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen which I read while laid low and can also thoroughly recommend.

So what are you reading at the moment? I’ll take for granted that some where in your reading pile is a book by your favourite Harlequin author or from your favourite series- but what else are you reading? Have you read something recently and you wish you hadn’t bothered? I’m almost scared to ask in case my tbr pile gets any bigger!